NCC will call you – Newspaper Kommersant No. 34 (7479) dated 28.02.2023
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The founder of the National Computer Corporation (NCC) Alexander Kalinin is starting a project to develop and manufacture a retail line of Android smartphones and tablets, promising to invest 10 billion rubles in it. The first batches of devices may appear this year, and by 2026 the company expects to occupy up to 10% of the market in the Russian Federation. Experts are skeptical about the project, believing that the company will have problems with licensing Google services in Russia, and in the future it will need to release smartphones under the Aurora OS.
The founder of the National Computer Corporation Alexander Kalinin told Kommersant that he plans to invest 10 billion rubles. in the development and production of mobile devices (tablets and smartphones) for the consumer market. For this, according to him, JSC “Sovereign Mobile Initiative. Holding”. The businessman did not name the investors, specifying only that these are “large structures.” SMI Holding JSC, according to SPARK-Interfax, was established on February 7 with an authorized capital of 5 million rubles, the owners are not indicated in the database.
Devices, according to Alexander Kalinin, will work under the Android operating system. “We are considering various options, this could be production at Russian factories or contract manufacturing at Chinese enterprises,” Mr. Kalinin specified. According to him, the design of devices is carried out by the founder of Vobis Computer (produced smartphones under the Highscreen trademark) Vadim Kopin. The latter, in turn, explained to Kommersant that the retail price of mobile devices would be 10-30 thousand rubles: “The first batch, we hope, will be released by December – up to 100 thousand pieces. By 2026, we hope to occupy up to 10% of the Russian market, which is about 3–3.5 million devices.”
Alexander Kalinin talked about plans to develop and release his own smartphones back in 2021, then it was about specialized secure devices for government agencies on a mobile OS from Kaspersky Lab (see Kommersant dated December 2, 2021). Mr. Kalinin refused to explain the status of this project, citing confidentiality. In July 2022, Vedomosti, citing sources, reported that Kaspersky Lab had withdrawn from the project.
Kommersant’s interlocutor on the Russian electronics market is skeptical about the idea: “The biggest question is how they license the use of Android with its GMS platform (Google Mobile Services built into devices at the system level. These are, for example, geolocation services, push- notifications, etc.— “b”) for use in Russia. Google will never take that step.”
Much more promising, says the Kommersant source, would be to use AOSP (Android Open Source Project, an open source OS, but without GMS) for smartphones, developing all the necessary services for it in the Russian Federation, including push notifications, geolocation and etc. In December 2022, it became known that the Ministry of Digital Development plans to connect a consortium of developers to the development of the domestic mobile ecosystem based on AOSP (see Kommersant dated December 30). Another option, according to the interlocutor of Kommersant, is to install the Aurora OS (owned by Rostelecom) on smartphones: “But then it will be necessary to form an application ecosystem for it, and this is far from 5 billion rubles.”
For the full-fledged development of the device, the stated timeframe is not enough, adds Fintech Lab analyst Sergey Vilyanov: “Probably, the company will order the original industrial design from Chinese factories, as Vobis Computer did when releasing Highscreen.” Such a model, according to him, pays off when ordering large quantities. According to the expert, against the background of the exit from the market of some foreign manufacturers, devices of the middle price category on Android may be in demand: “The question is about GMS certification and getting updates.” A market share of 10% by 2026 could be achievable with investments in marketing commensurate with 20-30% of projected sales, says a top manager of one of the electronics distributors. In his opinion, such a result looks real only in the case of serious state support.
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